wow! i saw them again yesterday and it was 180 degrees different from that first show! totally day and night. not that they had rock posturing down or anything but the overall sound and performance/show was just BIGGER. and with neko there it completely changed their sound (improved 1000x). all in all, it was awesome.

I've listened to the new one about five times now, thanks to modage's nagging encouragement. The Bleeding Heart Show is their best song, I can say that much. Haven't gotten a handle on the rest of it yet. Usually takes about ten listens for that to happen, and twenty for the best stuff to really come to the surface. I will say that the album starts off great then drifts off to averageness from Falling Through Your Clothes to Star Bodies before it picks up again right at the end. That may change though. Prime example, I used to loathe how Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief finished -- now, I love it.

i think there's something wrong if you need to force urself to hear sumthing 20 times before u start liking it.

a good album/song should be evident after 5 listens, MAX. the best stuff is immediately brilliant anyway. and then gets so good by the 5th listen that u can proclaim it the best album ever. all this repeat repeat repeat approach is doing is brainwashing u into tolerating it, and then maybe u think "hey this must be good cos it's all i've been hearing for the last 2 weeks!"

i think there's something wrong if you need to force urself to hear sumthing 20 times before u start liking it.

a good album/song should be evident after 5 listens, MAX. the best stuff is immediately brilliant anyway. and then gets so good by the 5th listen that u can proclaim it the best album ever. all this repeat repeat repeat approach is doing is brainwashing u into tolerating it, and then maybe u think "hey this must be good cos it's all i've been hearing for the last 2 weeks!"

it's like a cult-recruitment strategy.

I disagree. I mean, let's compare it to something familar to this site, film. From my experiences, sometimes it takes more than one viewing to really take in all there is in a film. For instance, if you are not in a good mental state ie tired, high, drunk or something similar, it might throw off your experience of the film. There are movies which I've seen 20 times in which I can discover and enjoy something new that I hadn't noticed before,

With music, it usually takes me a few times to really enjoy an album. In my case, on average I listen to 10-15 new albums a week. I find that I like something now that I might have heard a year ago, that I enjoy now but couldn't get into. An album which is very accessible should be very easy to listen to. But an album or piece of music which creates tension and dischord might take a long time to really get into.

Edit: so this reply is relevant to the thread, I might see The New Pornographers tonight at the trocadero in philly. If so, it will kick ass.

i think there's something wrong if you need to force urself to hear sumthing 20 times before u start liking it.

Nah, for me, certain things do click on the first listen, but sometimes the better songs don't make themselves known until the tenth time around. You're right about five being key, but if I've listened to an album 5 times, I'm going to be listening to it 20 anyway. And that's just so I can hear all the nuances after I've first gotten the gist of it.

Radiohead is a prime example. So nuanced that some songs I didn't take to at first have become favorites of mine only after hearing them before or after others on certain albums. This is because there're just so many subtleties to them. Amnesiac, again, is a key example. Its ending, with Dollars and Cents, Hunting Bears, Like Spinning Plates, and Life in a Glass House really annoyed me at first, but I really liked Packt and Knives Out and the others at the beginning. After hearing their live album, seeing what Like Spinning Plates is really about, I appreciated that recorded version much more, and the others started to stand out more -- especially Hunting Bears which at first I thought was stupid, which is now really kinda brilliant.

i bought AC Newman's - The Slow Wonder a week or so ago. haven't got to listen to it much yet, but it seems i'll like it since i like Twin Cinema and i heard some Twin Cinema-y sounds while scanning it.

If you really want to be ready to step into the ring with the New Pornographers' Challengers on August 21, one CD just won't be enough. Nor two. Three, maybe, but since we're thinking big, why not go four? That's right, Matador is offering a deluxe box set version of Challengers-- what they're calling the "Executive Edition"-- packed to the brim with four discs. It's available right this minute as part of Matador's Buy Early Get Now pre-order campaign.

The first disc is of course the Pornos' fourth LP. The second aims to collect every B-side, demo, and alternate version related to the album, while the third, titled "Live From the Future", will include live Pornos cuts from gigs on their just-announced fall tour. The final disc includes videos, photos (no Neko Case lingerie shots that we know of, sorry), and album artwork.

You might be wondering, hmm... how can they sell me a box set that includes songs that haven't been recorded yet? Well, the answer is... the box set doesn't actually exist in a box. Unless you make it yourself. You see, all of the extra goodies will be downloadable from the Buy Early Get Now site-- it's up to you to burn it to disc. And since it's a bunch of downloads rather than a physical product, Matador can add new stuff to it whenever they want. Magic!

In addition to the box set, "Executive Edition" subscribers also get to stream the whole album RIGHT NOW, mp3s of three exclusive bonus tracks, and early bird access to tour dates and tickets. For five bucks less, you can get the "Standard Edition", which includes everything but the box set.

There are so many Candian bands that you gotta hate one of them. This is the one I hate. I'll DL their new album if I can find it on Oink quick just to up my ratio, but otherwise, I hate this band with a passion. This band and Wolf Parade. Gross. No thanks.

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Let's go to a motel. We don't have to do anything -- we could just swim.